Break it – my mind – in pieces so small it hurts
by Ayingott
Summary: Ryoma hates the voices. He hates the abyss that is inside of him. He hates the loneliness and the pain that comes with knowing that he would never be good enough, never perfect, never what they wanted him to be. Thrill pair, self-harm, slight insanity.


**Disclaimer: I don't own PoT or any of the characters.**

**Warning: Suicide attempt and self-harm. A certain kind of insanity.**

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**Break it – my mind – in pieces so small it hurts.**

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There are voices in his head. Sometimes they are kind and loving and everything that his mother was and sometimes they are cruel and laughed with voices as sharp as glass and unforgiving. He hated all of them. They were everything that he was not and yet they were a part of him, a part of his mind and soul and heart.

Ryoma hates the voices. He hates the abyss that is inside of him. He hates the loneliness and the pain that comes with knowing that he would never be good enough, never perfect, never what they wanted him to be.

So he takes the marker, black and used and slightly old, and paints his heart black, dead and with no feelings left. That was all that he could do, after all.

…

It starts with the quiet pitter-patter of raindrops against the glass of his window. They are calming, the sound soothing and lulls him to sleep step by step. His mother's voice sounds so far away and he can't make out the words – he needs to finish this painting of black, a mirror to his soul. She talks about meetings and medication and pills that don't work.

Ryoma knows it all by heart now. This would be the… He forgot the number, but he knew the speech by heart and word for word. A broken record that has been played for too many times. Will he have to listen to this for the rest of his life? Was he really that deep down and broken that he would forever be bound by the chains he created on his own?

"You will go, right, honey?" his mother's voice is full of false hope that he will get better this time. She had lost it after the third time Ryoma tried to get out of this nightmare called life. Her tears had long since dried out. She had already cried too much.

The black marker stops and makes an ugly spot on the paper. Ryoma frowns down on it - a ruined drawing, yet another failed thing. His voice is quiet when he speaks, as if he's screamed for far too long and begged for days straight. "I'll go."

Another promise that weights too much and simply pushes him down in the black tar that is his mind.

…

There are people, eyes too many to count looking at him, staring at him. Judging him. Judging his problems and pain and everything that he is and will never be. Perfection and beauty – illusions of the sick fevers of a delirious man. Would he truly be saved by these eyes, the eyes that don't know his pain and the mazes that his mind works in?

His mother thinks that they will. Ryoma has long since lost the hope.

So he sits in the circle of people and waits for his verdict. He's sick in his head; Ryoma knows this without their help. Still, the voices whisper for him to shout out his hate towards the world and then walk away from it all. He was a coward, a sick and lonely child that wasn't capable of bravery that large. Pathetic. Weak. Pitiful.

"What do the voices tell you?"

Ryoma's tired gaze travels to closed eyes and a smile twisted in mystery. This was a first for someone to ask about the voices, about what they whisper into his core and what they make him do. It has always been about the reasons, about the past he doesn't remember and about his shaking hands that can't even hold the weight of his own life.

He blinks first, thoughts wrapping out of the tangle of spider-webs that seems to stick together and mix, blending into one another. First time in years Ryoma feels his lips forming a smile he had thought he'd lost to the insanity and his heart feels a little less dead as he speaks, "They tell me to cut deeper next time."

…

Black paint drips from the wall of his room, soaking everything up and covering the pale blue that is under it. There had been drawings of his warped mind there too, under all that black that seems to swallow everything whole.

The empty bucket drops on the floor, next to Ryoma's feet and dyes the carpet black as well. Now he was at piece, at least with his own room. His mother wouldn't care that everything is now black, she took everything as a sign that Ryoma was either getting better or worse, a sign that her child had yet to return to her and only a stranger she doesn't know was left behind.

He found it pleasing and as painful as thousand needles cutting into his hand at the same time.

Ignorance? Perhaps. He wouldn't know. He was a freak.

And yet, a smile blooms on his face. A smile with twisted edges and as sharp as a knife that mirrors the insanity that is slowly growing inside of Ryoma. That black looks pleasing, exactly what he had wanted to create. An abyss of his head and heart inside his room, a corner that was only his alone.

The sound of clapping makes Ryoma widen his eyes and turn around, smile now gone and only a face of emptiness is left as a fading afterimage. It's the blue eyes, smiling a smile that doesn't quite reach inside and looking at the black behind Ryoma in a fascination that is bordering insane.

"That's a nice way to interpret hope. I like it." The stranger says and walks closer, reaching out with his fingertips to the black before him. They will be dirtied, tainted. But Ryoma doesn't care – he cannot remember when he had been pure.

He raises one eyebrow and looks at his work again, trying to see the hope that should be there. Nothing. All he saw was pain, broken dreams and hopes and his mother's tears. Despair was all that he saw, a life with no future and a heart broken.

"That's not hope. That's death."

…

There's warm blood sliding down his wrist. It serves as proof for his weakness, his vulnerability, his foolishness. Maybe it was meant to be – a death like this? A death with no special meanings added and with no special funeral march to be done in celebration of it. Ryoma's death would be just as boring as his life. It was somewhat a calming fact, actually.

Now those voices should be happy – he's done what they told him to do.

Though, instead of the softness of death he feels a pressure on his wrist, warmth of another living thing seeping into his cold body. He doesn't open his eyes and he doesn't react, he waits for what is to happen now. Will he be saved? Will he still be welcomed in the safe hands of Death?

The person is annoyed, Ryoma can tell and wants to smile a little, tease that it was all the other's fault. But he can't so he doesn't. It's too cold. Too heavy his body has become.

His wrist is held tightly; even more pressure is placed on it. "Don't die, don't die, don't die. You still have to finish that painting of yours. The one about hope." Something warm touches his cheek and he can smell blood, warm blood that is a symbol of life.

"You have yet to tell me your name."

Voices scream in his head, tear his thoughts in pieces and vibrate in every part of his body. It's like he had done something wrong, something forbidden and unwanted. But he didn't mean to – it wasn't him! It was the one with the blue eyes and a smile as fake as Ryoma's insanity was real. Perhaps death truly was the answer to the pain?

…

There's white all around him and the voices in his head are still screaming, yelling out their frustration and anger. He's been saved yet again. He had already lost the right number of times that he had been here, has been saved yet again.

But now there was someone next to his bed – watching, listening, waiting.

"What are the voices telling you now?" the guest asks, his blue eyes frozen on the sharp edges carved in Ryoma's skin, new above the old. Death upon death.

He turns his head, eyes downcast and looking far into the void that only he can see and feel. There is hesitation that he feels, fear from being alive and fear from having someone next to him, having someone who cares and believes. Was he worth it? No, no he was no not.

"They tell me to run. They tell me to die. They tell me to break."

…

He's back where there are eyes that judge him, eyes that look with disgust and pity that burns his skin and breaks his bones. But he is no longer alone, chained with the voices in his head and the despair that slowly eats him away. Ryoma is now next to Fuji, the one with the blue eyes and the sight that seems to see more than the rest, holding onto the warm hand and hoping that maybe there is still escape.

Fuji said that it had always been there, he just hadn't seen it through the blindfold on his eyes. Ryoma did not trust him – the voices had always been there, after all.

Still, he doesn't speak, not with the lady that seems too tired for her age and too caring for his like. She reminds Ryoma of his mother. They both have already given up on him. A hopeless case, truly. His voices agree, all laughing in the same voice that cuts his thoughts and slides along his skin.

But Fuji's touch is warm and even while the voices scream in protest and pain and horror Ryoma likes it, longs for it even more with each passing second. Was this because Fuji had been there when he painted out his abyss, when he first talked about the voices and when he had tried to run from the world that didn't love him? Perhaps. Maybe. No, not really.

…

It's raining and Ryoma's in the wet grass, lying on his back and looking up at the grey sky that seems to be crying. For him? No, not for him.

He ran away from home, from the suffocation of his mother that now didn't let him out of his own room, from the abyss that started at him and the whispers of hatred that came from within him. There was a need to stop. He needed to be out and feel the air between his fingers as a reminder that he was still alive, still here as a human being. Or perhaps he was no longer a human?

A doll? A marionette with strings cut and thrown away? A ghost that is but a weak memory of the past?

No, he wasn't even that.

There are footsteps coming closer, a presence and warmth that he was afraid of. Should he give in or should he run? Was there a chance or was there only pain that would tear his body in bits and break his mind in pieces so small it hurts? He was afraid to care, to feel and to know of warmth that he would get addicted to quickly.

Warm lips pressed on his own, blue eyes asking for reasons he couldn't tell and begging to never think of himself as worthless again. A first time from many that Ryoma gave away to Fuji, a piece of his broken and cold heart that now was Fuji's.

Should he care? No. Should he finally cry? Yes.

…

The black abyss is in front of him and the itchy material of the carpet bites in his skin. There is nothing on his body, the body of a human being who has thrown away the meaning of life; only scars and the weight on his shoulders have been kept.

But Ryoma sits naked on the carpet, eyes never leaving the black that is before him, the same black that had been called hope by Fuji before. It was not hope; he still could not see it. It was a loneliness that ate away his core and the voices that were still in his head.

His naked skin shivered from the nightly air, his breath quickened when that abyss opened up to swallow him whole. A night spent awake, a night to cast away the doubt that Fuji was a mirage, an illusion of the voices and the soul that begged for that which he had never had. Should he trust? Should he hope? Should he believe?

Perhaps he should. For the first time in his life Ryoma will go against the voices in his head and the demons living in his shadow.

Now the night air didn't seem as cold, the carpet less rough against his skin. There was a hope that he had never dreamed of having, a hope that was not painted in the black before him. A thin thread that would wrap around his wrist and cut into the skin until it meets the bone and knots around it – a protective lifeline.

…

They stand at the edge of a building with floors so many they didn't bother counting. Why count away the life you have been given when you have no interest in it? It was all nothing more than memories patched together with a needle and a string, butterflies that would soon die.

So they would hold onto each other's warmth and climb the stairs, higher and higher towards the sky decorated with stars. Fuji would lead; a shepherd of lost sheep and souls alike, and Ryoma would follow like a child unfamiliar and lost in the world that had finally shown itself for him. It was a dream that he had never dreamed of dreaming, a reality that he had given up on.

And here they stand, feet still on the roof, but so close to the edge, and eyes looking into the far beyond where dreams came true and voices were nothing more than legends told and forgotten. He waits for a tomorrow that would bring answers to his questions. Fuji waits for the smile on Ryoma's lips to live again.

Labyrinth of wishes, black hole of despair.

Ryoma raises his head and looks at the infinity above him and reaches out for it, fingers desperate to grab onto it and keep holding on. "Veni, vidi, vici, was it? I wonder, when will I no longer hear them."

Fuji laughs and the sound makes his fingertips tingle and eyes mist over slightly. He had missed the sound even before he had known of it. "What are you, Caesar?" quiet and then the air shifts - something is changing, "Whispers will never end, you just won't be able to hear them. I still have my demons, after all."

"Pathetic." He allows his hands to fall away from the sky and closes his eyes, trying to imagine what would his voices look like, what creatures they belonged to. A thought not meant for this moment.

There is hand suddenly holding his own. Gently, as if Ryoma would break apart any second and then there are lips on his knuckles – warm and gentle and light as snow. He should not be cherished so. He was too dirty, too twisted and black inside.

They hold hands as the sunrise begins and soft rays of light fall on the blackness that had taken over. They will survive, they will fix each other. Two broken and cut open pieces of a puzzle – that is what they were, nothing else.


End file.
